The Case for Space
All of us have our hopes and dreams. We have it within
our grasp to achieve such laudable objectives as world peace, the end of famine,
a clean environment and universal education. I am sure that these are but a few
of the things we would like to see realised. But imagine having reached such a
admirable state the human race was destroyed – you would think how tragic, how
cruel. Yet all of the above aims are not worth a damn if any of several threats
to our planet came about.
These
sobering thoughts were brought anew to my attention recently. On the BBC radio
news there was an item about the MP for Montgomeryshire, Lembit Opik, and his
thoughts upon the very real threat to Earth from comet/asteroid impact and the
need for such excellent projects as Spaceguard to watch out for (and if possible
avert) such an ocurrence. To my dismay the treatment of this item was as an
“and finally…..” moment, tagged on at the end of the bulletin as a form of
amusement. This attitude is very much in keeping with the obscenity of Hollywood
spending millions of dollars on films about such a disaster when Spaceguard and
similar projects are either still-born or underfunded. And it is not just
impacts that threaten – a short list could include massive volcanic eruptions
( if you doubt this inquire about the origin of India’s Deccan Traps ),
epidemic, and of course the human speciality of self-destruction, deliberate or
accidental, by nuclear, bacteriological or chemical warfare. In the much longer
term you could also include changes in the Sun’s output. The problem is best
described by the old cliché – we have all our eggs in one basket – Earth.
What we need is at least one other place in the solar system where a new branch
of the human race can flourish – and right now the best candidate is Mars.
Okay, not far enough away if the sun flares perhaps, but we need to take this
one step at a time!
At last perhaps this message is being taken up by those who can do
something about it. In his book The Case for Mars (Simon and Schuster 1996)
Robert Zubrin has a striking phrase. Referring to the accumulation of
indigenously produced power/propellants on Mars he says “If this is done then
the Martian surface becomes the second safest place in the solar system”. Now
Dr. Peter Curreri of Marshall Space Flight Center in a recent piece uses that
same phrase when discussing power generation on Mars “…..then Mars becomes
the second safest place in the solar system for humans.” Perhaps Zubrin and
the “Martian Underground” will see their dreams realised – or not. NASA
(and let’s face no one else at the moment has anything like the clout) seems
determined to be sidetracked from Mars as a goal by citing the International
Space Station and a return to the Moon as necessary preliminaries for human
flight to Mars. It is just not so – it is in fact far easier to go from Low
Earth Orbit to Mars than it is to go from LEO to the surface of the moon and
also a lot cheaper than building a space station on the way. In a speech the
late NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine stated, “As Napoleon Bonaparte once
said explaining his winning strategy for war with Austria: ‘If you want to
take Vienna, take Vienna!’ Well, if you want to go to Mars, go to Mars!”
Just think, to have your heart’s desire finally within your grasp when
you are killed by that which you had the time and the knowledge to have seen
coming but were just too shortsighted to have done anything about. Now scale
that up to where ‘you’ is the entire human race. We need to take our first
steps into the Universe and Mars is an obvious first destination. A viable human
civilisation on Mars could deal with many of these threats of extinction at one
stroke and the human exploration of the solar system would be a necessary
preliminary to moving further out. The outer Solar System, the Kuiper Belt and
the Oort Cloud could be used as stepping stones to other stars in a slow and
natural progression for a truly spacefaring race. (It would be nice to have Star
Trek’s Enterprise but until warp drive comes along comet and planetesimal
hopping seems like the best way to go. Slow but sure.)
The
important thing to realise is that the colonization of Mars and the exploration
of the Solar System are not alternatives to achieving the ‘laudable
objectives’ I mention above. Money is not really the problem – a Mars
mission could be mounted for less than the cost of a major modern weapons system
– what is lacking is the will. My feeling is strong that is is now or never to
begin such exploration/colonisation. (At least for what we like to call Western
civilisation ) The attention span of we humans is
short and the Pathfinders and Voyagers are soon treated as entertainment,
amusing for a while then forgotten. Are we content to watch reruns of Star Trek
until the asteroid arrives? In a culture turning away from science, where news
media bemusedly refer to the antics of ‘boffins’, and the drivel of New Age
mysticism is embraced by uncritical TV show presenters for tittilation the real
(and dangerous) Universe takes a back seat. In the light of the above the
oft-quoted words of H.G.Wells ring
truer than ever about the choice facing us all – it is the Universe or
nothing.
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©Copyright 2001
Eighty Ross W Sargent All rights reserved